


Callbacks

by SubwayWolf



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, M/M, Men Crying, Surprise Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-14 10:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9178324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SubwayWolf/pseuds/SubwayWolf
Summary: When Georgi loses, he tends to blame others. Christophe knows the best way to turn jealousy on its head and change a man's mind.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i know i'm alone as shit here but i don't care! i dont care shut up!!! yall need to appreciate side characters & ships more!!! i fall for side characters so hard, always. chris and georgi are both amazing and i love them don't @ me
> 
> i honestly dont.. even care if this gets zero attention, i want to post it and be part of the ship tag which has like 3 works in it. so here's this! i've been dying to write something with georgi in it because i want someone to take care of him (i always assign chris that job, idk why). i feel like they have some stuff in common and can help each other out and make each other happy!!!

The past few months, while absolutely horrible, did provide Georgi Popovich with one upside – he had learned a _lot_ about himself. He learned how he dealt with piqued anger and sadness and greif and hate. He learned that he turned those emotions into something positive, by creating skating programs out of them and channeling creativity. He also learned that they made him ridiculously obsessive, to the point where that sickness in his stomach tortured him through full nights with no sleep at all. 

He also developed many habits over these months spent heartbroken. A lot of them made his skating noticeably better; even with Viktor in semi-retirement, Georgi found a way to motivate himself to skate and win. But some habits, like sacrificing sleep time for obsessive social media lurking, or skipping meals because he felt sick, or having good, long crys alone in the locker room when he was supposed to be on the ice, were not as helpful. 

Conclusively, heartbreak made his focus and health plummet, and all of those negative factors amassed into a veritable snowball effect which proved detrimental at the Cup of China.

Georgi was well aware that Anya was competing in the Cup of China as well, and he had intended to use her presence to motivate him – it ended up doing the exact opposite. As easy as it was to blame her for his flubbed jumps, he knew very well that the culprit it was his own pathetic weaknesses, not hers.

So, the result? Pure humiliation. Not even making podium. Instead, being beat out by last year’s sixth-place finalist and some Thai kid whose name he hadn’t even heard before SP day. As if the sadness he felt on his own wasn’t enough, the glare from Coach Yakov made it about a thousand times worse. 

Georgi felt like an absolute failure. First, as if by reflex, to Anya. Then, to himself.

Another skill he’d picked up after his soul was crushed: Georgi ended up being remarkably talented at disguising his deep shame as anger, but those defenses were cheap. If there was some sort of self-help breathing exercise that would release the pressure of stress building up between his ears, he was never taught it. 

As he escaped into the locker room after the FS, Georgi could not stop sulking around. His lips were twisted into a permanent frown, not from pouting, but from the incessant, inescapable feeling that he was going to cry, in front of the coaching staff, in front of the other Russian skaters watching from home, in front of the fans. Seeing his own pouting face up on the stadium’s big screen only made Georgi’s ears turn a darker shade of red and made the tightness in his throat sting stronger.

If he was the bigger man, which, emotionally, he was not, Georgi would have realized the blame was his own. Surely, a flubbed jump and a sloppy step sequence did not warrant a place off the podium, but nonetheless, the fault belonged exclusively to him – not to his coach, not to Anya, not to the Anya, and not to Christophe Giacometti.

Christophe was the only skater Georgi could care to remember skating against in the past. The man shared plenty of podiums with Viktor, so he was clearly talented and memorable in that regard. He also happened to be the same age as Georgi, but even so, they’d never really spoken. 

From a distance, Chris was not particularly likeable. Hes seemed distant and prude to everyone but Viktor, who he seemed to be friends with; still, Georgi did not particularly like Chris’ stuck-up attitude and avoided him. And from what Georgi had seen of Chris’ admittedly lewd SP and FS, his skating was rather lackluster as well. 

Georgi found himself thinking the dangerous thought, _I did not deserve to lose to that_. And once that seed was planted, it made the sickness of jealousy in his stomach worse. This kind of hate had built up the habit of _never_ going away.

Georgi knew perfectly well that he was out-skated by Phichit and Yuuri, and that his own mistakes deservedly dropped his score. But blaming Christophe was so easy, and when prolonged hours of holding back tears makes your throat hurt like you’ve swallowed toxic acid, clear cognitive reasoning basically goes out the window.

Being indefinitely given the silent treatment by Yakov with no advance warning was bad enough. The sight of Chris’s stupid, grinning face out on the ice was worse – and even _more_ humiliating was that Chris had that bronze medal around his neck. 

Georgi, behaving more childishly than he’d like to admit, refused to say a word of congratulations to his fellow veteran or even shake the hands of the winners, as he probably should have. He was willing to sacrifice future admonishments in the favor of a personal petty grudge.

So Georgi ended up in fourth, which was annoying for a number of reasons, but in the bottom of Georgi’s gut he was glad Chris was beat out by the younger skaters and couldn’t place above bronze. Thinking back, he was glad at every mistake Chris made. 

To preserve his own dignity on the ice, he was able to prevent himself from crying and from smiling, too. Post-game was another story.

In the locker room, he spent so much time in reality-blackening thought that time passed faster than light. He felt small in the crowded, small space, packed with coaches and skaters and reporters. The crowd which only frustrated him more, but by closing his eyes and pressing the heels of his hands against them, he was able to pretend he was alone long enough until he was alone – or, he _thought_ he was.

When Georgi moved his hands down, opened his eyes, and scanned the almost-empty locker room, his stomach sunk when he saw that he was accompanied by none other than Christophe fuckin’ Giacometti. 

Chris was messing around with something in one of the lockers, minding his own business. He had changed out of his FS outfit and was in a casual red-and-white atheletic outfit with the Swiss flag printed on the back. He didn’t acknowledge Georgi or say a word.

Just at the sight of this, Georgi was filled with rage all over again and scoffed at him from across the room. “You are pretty high up on the list of people I do _not_ want to see right now.”

There were other people scattered around, and they left quickly, most sporting an eye roll as they went out the door and down the hall, avoiding the drama they certainly expected. Chris, meanwhile, didn’t do much more than peek over his shoulder for a moment a smile, which was _really_ annoying, because the smile was genuine, not patronizing or sardonic, but _genuine_.

Georgi, still wearing his blue-and-white FS costume under his Team Russia track jacket, stood from his seat and went over to approach Chris. The closer he became, the worse he felt, for he found that Chris taller than him. Something as simple as that made him feel worse, like he was already losing an argument that had yet to take place. 

“Do you have something to say to me?” Georgi asked, squaring his shoulders up, swallowing his emotions down as best as he could.

Christophe turned around. Georgi was cornering him against his locker but Chris didn’t tense up or seem to mind, just stood in place, looking up at him pleasantly, the small smile still upturning his pretty lips. There was a slight crease in his brow to show his understandable confusion. 

Truly, Georgi wasn’t exactly sure what he expected to hear. A selfish side of him wanted an apology, and a dominant side of him wanted Chris to beg for forgiveness. Neither seemed to be realistic, but that didn’t stop him from trying to pry one out. 

Georgi cocked his head condescendingly, taking that final step towards his competitor, leering up at him as ominously as he could. “Is that a no? You have nothing to say?” His voice was weak and dry from the raw tightness in his throat, causing his voice to crack slightly, wrecking any hope of intimidation in his statement.

The confusion stayed on Chris’s face and it was not replaced with amusement, thank god. If it was, Georgi just might have started to cry on the spot. It would have been so easy for Chris to make an off-handed comment and bring Georgi to tears, but he didn’t. It would have been easy for Chris to laugh at Georgi’s raw, tired voice or poke fun at his performance, but he didn’t. 

Georgi didn’t truly want to fight, not physically and certainly not verbally. But he was not sure exactly what he did want, and he was even less certain what Chris was going to do. 

So it was nothing short of a surprise when Chris kissed him, hard. But Georgi did not even hesitate, relaxing and receiving it just for half a second before returning the pressure, moving down, pressing against him, matching him. 

It was a good kiss. It had been a very long time since Georgi had kissed a man or _anyone_ for that matter, but he did not forget how. He let his eyes close, and in the dark, all the tension in his muscles was quickly fading, nice and easy. For the first time in an eternity, jealousy lifted out of him, the pain and sickness gone, and he felt exhausted, like all the sleep he’d missed out on was catching up with him. Christophe was giving him precisely what he needed.

Georgi could feel hands on his hips, using slight force to shift them, bring them near, lead him closer to contact. Georgi liked being handled this roughly, he liked the wet pressure against his lips and strong hands putting him into place, and so he hummed warmly from the back of his throat, feeling the rawness continuing to ache. His heart was pounding. There was electricity in his hands causing them to shake as he grabbed at Chris’ red jacket. This was pure, cathartic bliss.

It really was a contest, by all means, for they were both talented kissers, strong and passionate, matching each other’s fervor and will to exact precision. Georgi put his hands up above Chris’s waist while Chris moved his huge hands downwards, gripping relentlessly at Georgi’s ass. With a short whine passing his lips, Georgi arched his back, slightly, curving his rear outwards so that Chris had more room to grip at him. 

As tongues passed and breathing grew heavy, Georgi squeezed his eyes shut tightly and felt the warm tears leaking out of their edges. He furrowed his brow, trying to focus on the kiss, but the tears, pent up for so long, continued to come, and his abdomen was tightening and his throat was constricting and he was trying to hold his breath until he choked a sob out, breaking the kiss, and then another came out, and another, until he was unable to stop. 

It was not simple crying, it was sobbing, and it got stronger, beyond his control, shaking him with the strength of high tide ocean waves, tears pooling up in his eyelashes as he tried squeezing his eyes closed or blinking them away, both to no avail. 

Yet again, it would have been easy, _so_ easy for Chris to laugh or leave or pity him, but he didn’t. His lips were wet and slightly red from fervent overuse, but they tilted into a frown, noticeably so, and then he took Georgi in a hug. 

Again, when Georgi closed his eyes, time passed at an unusual rate, so that when he sobbed and sniffled and wiped his running nose and wet eyes into Chris’s jacket, he was not sure exactly how long they were standing there together. But he could feel his muscles marginally relaxing, little by little, his shoulders slouching as he received the hug, his throat losing its tension, his lips tingling as blood rushed to them again after overuse. Chris’s hands were traveling up and down his back, easing him, relaxing him.

As he wracked out the last of his aching sobs, Georgi briefly wondered what the fuck was going on. Was it some strange mind game, an exchange of apology and forgiveness, or genuine care? In Georgi’s tender heart, it felt like all three. 

The embrace was warm. He could feel Chris’s heart beating against his chest if he concentrated enough, and – he had read this somewhere – the super long hug was forcing happy brain chemicals to release in place of the sad ones, or something.

Chris’ spoke to him in a gentle almost-whisper. His voice was low and deep and soothing. “I’m sorry you missed podium,” he confessed, his lips close, teasing. “Next time, I hope to share it with you. Tell me you’ll be there.”

Next time? Oh, France. Georgi took a deep breath so his voice wouldn’t falter and whispered back, “I’ll be there.” He held Christophe tighter. He wanted to thank him but didn’t know how.

The humiliation was gone, and he felt good. And, for a while, he forgot all about the heartbreak of the past and finally settled into the first glimmers of acceptance, towards the end light of moving on.

Chris had a smile in his voice at the end of it, and whispered, “See you soon.”


End file.
